Trend Report: 2011 Holiday Forecast

Wondering what your teen wants this Holiday season?

Here’s a list of the top Fall/Winter 2011 Teen Internet pop culture phenomenas to help you get them appropriate gifts based on the trends they follow.

Our teen’s wish list includes a variety of gift ideas from the freebies to some more pricey options.

1. Cyber Nostalgia & Vintage Reinterpretation

The Trend

This trend focuses on recycling elements from previous decades and giving  them a new twist. Teens are latching on to memories of the past but doing so through the technology and culture of the future. This trend is reinterpreted in various forms from utilizing the aesthetic of the early 90’s Internet to leveraging fashion from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.

Teen Profile:

– this teen is interested in a revisionist version of nostalgia

– they support this through appropriating pop culture totems and recycling / altering them through modern technology, social media, and new web culture

– they’re interested in creating a new point of view of pop culture history

– they’re using the unlimited bandwidth of the new Internet to appropriate the inherent nostalgia of obsolete mediums / trends (VHS, cassette tapes, vintage clothing, vintage tech culture from 80s – 90s, etc…)

WISHLIST:

Video Time Machine

Price: $1.99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-time-machine/id438078438?mt=8

Your teen will now be able to travel back in time as often as they like by simply using this iPhone app.

Create your own Tee

Price: $18

http://www.christopherleesauve.com/shop/create-your-own/

This is a great online tool that enables your teen to create their own T Shirts using iconic figures. They’ll love to be able to choose their favorite iconic figures and create their very own unique tee.

POLAROID POGO – INSTANT PRINTER:

Price: $59.99

http://www.polaroid.com/en/products/polaroid-pogo/polaroid-pogo-instant-digital-printer

They never owned a Polaroid but they can now re-live the experience with this instant digital printer.

2. Mashup / Remix Culture

The Trend

Remix Culture is part of the New Web Tumblr aesthetic. It’s based on sampling everything the Internet has to offer and remixing and mashing it together. It extends from Video Collages of TV shows, Art installations, Fashion, Music and Movie sampling. It’s a genre that’s founded on the basic ideal of “borrowing” the best parts of every other genre to formulate a Frankenstein monster of unbelievable concentrated aural and visual grandeur.

Teen Profile

– by reinterpreting and repurposing pop culture, they’re able to create a more personal and visceral relationship with culture

– they take culture from every medium and sample it into a contrasting medium to alter the context / cultural history of the sample

– they’re more focused on the overall aesthetic of their final product instead of the actual content they’re borrowing from

WISHLIST:

Chanel Graffiti Drips Logo Crewneck Sweatshirt

Price: $29.40

http://www.spreadshirt.com/-C3380A8127416?gclid=CLn87uT8pawCFYHe4AodQSZM1w

Chanel revisited. Now they can effortlessly be the most stylish kid on the block.

TOKIDOKI BARBIE

Price: $50

http://www.barbiecollector.com/shop/doll/tokidoki-barbie-doll-t7939

Now that’s a Barbie with some classic Harajuku style.

“BERNADETTE” BOW EAR BAND

Price: $135

http://gerlanjeans.bigcartel.com/product/limited-edition-bernadette-bow-ear-band

Re-visited 60’s bow with an urban twist, a must have if you want to make a statement at school.

 3.  Experimental Culture

The Trend

This trend is all about creating the next cutting edge culture with no boundaries. From the hyper sampling of culture a new hybrid is forming. Experimental culture is attained through rampant sampling and misappropriation both within online culture and in the real world through fashion, music, art, design, etc…

By not being aware or focused on the cultural canon that preceded them, Experimental Culture mashes together anything and everything to create a vast array of hyper-topical underground cultures
(e.g. Tavi Gevinson & The Style Rookie)

The combination of unlimited bandwidth, instantly accessible technology, and the development of avant garde culture over the last 60 – 70 years (since dada, anti art, and pop art from the 40s and 50s) has created the perfect set of variables / environment for a forward thinking teen to create innovative culture without having to take into account the cultural movements that have come before them

Teen Profile

– this teen doesn’t abide by the conventional standards

– they’re always looking for new ways to transgress cultural norms

– they rely more on their own aesthetic and cultural intuition then the standards and trends of their peers

– they innovate through not paying attention to trends and instead creating their own concepts from a blank slate cultural perspective

WISHLIST

Teen Vogue Haute Spot App

Price: FREE

http://www.teenvogueallaccess.com/1012/gotta1.cfm

If your teen always needs to know about the latest designer fashion trends, this app is a must have in their life.

MILO FOOTBALL HOODIE by A Bathing Ape

Price: $377

http://us.bape.com/

A solid Japanese streetwear hoodie to help your teen stand out from the crowd.

Domo: The Plush Bomber Hat

Price: $26

http://www.karmaloop.com/product/188748?VendorCode=DOM&green=64E6B650-D44C-5F08-BBF7-1B8EBE41EFD7

Be ahead of the curve by getting this textured bomber hat, a re-take on the classic vintage animal hats.

4. Identity Transformation–

The Trend

This trend bends the idea of online personas. It allows the creation of a completely new avatar, based on whatever characteristics the user wants to portray. Teens use their online personas to become super natural versions of themselves. By remixing their personalities with Internet culture, by enabling these teens are able to create virtual personas in any possible way they can imagine.

Teen Profile:

– this teen utilizes social media to expand on their own real world personality

– they’ll would either create a similar persona or accent to their real world personality, or something that completely contrasts it and is unrealistic in their real life

– each social media platform exists as a different layer that equates with their full persona / brand (videos on Youtube / Vimeo, music on Bandcamp / Souncloud / Last.fm, an altered or authentic personal history / ephemera on Facebook / Twitter, and cultural inspirations on Tumblr / Blogger / WordPress)

– social media is the first venue that allows teens to articulate an alternative persona / avatar that contrasts their real world vantage point, and they get to choose how similar / dissimilar their final product is.

WISHLIST:

HP’s Twynergy Twitter App

Price: FREE

https://developer.palm.com/appredirect/?packageid=com.hp.twynergy.app

HP Twynergy is an innovative and unique way to discover how much you have in common with other people on Twitter.

IPhone App builder

Price: $29/month

http://appbreeder.com/

If your teen is busy at work building their online persona they’ll be glad to have an Iphone app for their ever growing audience.

iPhone 4S

Price: $499

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

If they don’t have an iPhone yet, chances are they’ll  want one. Could their possibly be a better tool to help you newscast your life?

 

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